Zanzibar acid attack: father says teenagers devastated by ordeal

Marc Trup says daughter Kirstie and friend Katie Gee struggling to come to terms with the attack and the severity of their burns

Kirstie Trup and Katie Gee are being treated for the burns they suffered at the Chelsea and Westminster hospital in London. Photograph: Jonathan Brady/PA

The father of one of the two British teenagers who had acid thrown on them in Zanzibar has said they are both devastated by the extent of their injuries, which are likely to leave them with long-term physical and mental scars.

Marc Trup said his daughter Kirstie and her friend Katie Gee were struggling to come to terms with the attack and the severity of their burns.

"They are really not in any emotional or physical state to do anything," he told the Sunday Times. "Since their arrival, the enormity of their ordeal is having a devastating effect on them, as is the extent of the injuries."

The women were coming to the end of a one-month volunteer teaching trip to Zanzibar when a corrosive substance was thrown at them in an apparently unprovoked attack last week.

The two 18-year-olds from north-west London were flown home and taken to the burns unit at Chelsea and Westminster hospital on Friday, where they are said to be well rested and comfortable.

Trup, a company director, said: "Each girl faces their own trauma, different but each equally important. These scars, mental and physical, [are] something they both have to live with for a long time."

The two teenagers were attacked as they walked along a deserted street in the Stone Town area of Zanzibar City on their way to have dinner on Wednesday. Two men approached them on a moped, one sulphuric acid, which he threw at them.

Local people have been stunned by the assault. Acid attacks take place from time to time in Zanzibar, a semi-autonomous archipelago off the coast of Tanzania, but they are usually connected to feuds or used as a means of revenge and have not previously involved foreigners.

The Tanzanian tourism minister, Said Ali Mbarouk, said the attack had shocked and shamed the country, adding that security had been stepped up in all tourist areas, including Stone Town.

Earlier reports suggested police were pursuing a radical Muslim cleric, Sheikh Ponda, in connection with the attacks. They later released a statement saying Ponda had been arrested but was not connected with the attacks.

The Guardian
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